Jimi Hendrix' Gear and Mods at West Coast Organ and Amp

[swankmotee]

AMEN Frenchie, you knocked that argument outta the park and explained in an irrefutable way which is what everybody needs to just except!

[daveweyer]

Tone seaker,
Once again thanks for posting those old photos of amps that may have been Jimi's.

Now is the second picture of the underside of the chassis supposed to be the top amp?
Did you notice a 1K IRC American resistor on the cathode of V1 with a replacement electrolytic?
Did you also notice (2) 470K IRC American resistors for mixing the two channels?
Did you notice that the EL34s appear to actually be Svetlana's? If you have an original Mullard EL34 from that time period you can see that the plate formation is different, the two slots are narrower, and the plate structure is closer to the base of the tube. I'm looking at an original as I write this.
Does it look like the voltage selector might have been added or replaced, with an old Dymo tape label for identifying which voltage?
Did you see any West Coast stickers on the amp? Should be visible, either that or a glue spot from a ripped off label.
Are the main HV filter caps original?

If that amp was supposed to have come in the 1969 shipment for the 69 tour and remained stock, shouldn't it have a Dagnall 2562 PT with a narrower 1.8" lamination stack?

Anything used at Woodstock should have West Coast stickers all over, and I can see lots of them in the old blurry pics.
All of them that crossed my bench had 6550s unless they burned up right away and someone else replaced them with El34s.

Any answers from anyone would actually be very helpful.

[Tenderfoot]

Tenderfoot,
Just take one end of the 2uf cap off of the dividing point of the 22K and the 10K resistor, and move it over to the collector of the 3904 directly. Leave everything else in place. See if that gets you enough gain.

daveweyer, In a word "YES". It's almost as if it took out some of the fuzz and replaced it with clean gain! Even when you turn down to play clean you can hear the faint feedback of the notes , so cool! I'll try to get a clip up soon and thank you for your willingness to share your knowledge!

[Tone seaker]

AMEN Frenchie, you knocked that argument outta the park and explained in an irrefutable way which is what everybody needs to just except!

All I did was throw some skeptisim about all the mods. Like some one else posted earlier. I believe most of this is true but I don't believe all his Euro amps were modded too. Where is that evidence. Frenchie did nothing but flame me it would be nice if he contributed. Dave said to challenge him so I did

[Tone seaker]

Tone seaker,
Once again thanks for posting those old photos of amps that may have been Jimi's.

Now is the second picture of the underside of the chassis supposed to be the top amp?
Did you notice a 1K IRC American resistor on the cathode of V1 with a replacement electrolytic?
Did you also notice (2) 470K IRC American resistors for mixing the two channels?
Did you notice that the EL34s appear to actually be Svetlana's? If you have an original Mullard EL34 from that time period you can see that the plate formation is different, the two slots are narrower, and the plate structure is closer to the base of the tube. I'm looking at an original as I write this.
Does it look like the voltage selector might have been added or replaced, with an old Dymo tape label for identifying which voltage?
Did you see any West Coast stickers on the amp? Should be visible, either that or a glue spot from a ripped off label.
Are the main HV filter caps original?

If that amp was supposed to have come in the 1969 shipment for the 69 tour and remained stock, shouldn't it have a Dagnall 2562 PT with a narrower 1.8" lamination stack?

Anything used at Woodstock should have West Coast stickers all over, and I can see lots of them in the old blurry pics.
All of them that crossed my bench had 6550s unless they burned up right away and someone else replaced them with El34s.

Any answers from anyone would actually be very helpful.

Thanks Dave. I mean no insult just wanted a response like you just gave pointing out these things. I am not super tech like some here but do know my way around amps a little Did you remove the Bright cap off the amps you worked on? The amps I posted do not have the white stickers like the Woodstock amps. This means there could have been 2 sets of amps for the US and one for Europe making 3 sets of amps. So unless we can see the back of the amps for stickers at the particular venue we are trying to get the tone for (Exp. BOG cant see the back) we will never know for sure except Woodstock. Those are deffintly Jimi's amps here is the head box to one

[Xplorer]

well, you point out the euro amps, and it's interesting. i remember , from the article that Jimi got eight ( ? ) new marshalls in 68, which as Dave said in some unrevealed story before, this Jim Morrisson ltd fun stuff.
Now, about the previous 4 x JTM 45/100 he bought when he arrived in London, directly to Jim Marshall, and about the two super tremolo 67, and the 67 blackflag, do you remember , Dave, if you worked on these too ? or seing these coming to you with no mods or other mods than those you did for him ?

- sorry, writting this i imagine a scene in a police station, like : "what did you do last thursday, between 10 am and 5 pm ? modding amps for someone called Jimi Hendrix ... aha ? really ? do you have any witness ? tell us where is his tone !!! " ha ha ha , sorry, not my intention

anyway, what could have been these mods ? i'm a lot interested by this because it concerns the early Hendrix tones, the experience and axis.
do you realise that you're partly responsible for a Hendrix tone era, Dave ?

one hypothesis would be that Jimi had even more Marshalls than we thought. if you count the pre superleads, the 8 SL that were sent to west coast organ, and ..... these J.H EXP stenciled amps, in which we don't see everything we'd like to see.

another hypothesis is that these amps are some superleads fit into some Hendrix amp headboxs, and the original modded amps are ..... we don't know where ....

i don't think that either hypothesis is impossible, and there may be more.
So for now, there are a lot of blanks, which can't really let us oppose theorys at some point, because it'll just be pure conjecture, but we have some very very important elements thanks to Dave , confirming many ideas we had, and the best at this point, is to try, to let the ears tell something. Because really ... it'll change your habits and vision if you open yourself to such mods, and play a bit with it.

[swankmotee]

Hey Toneseeker, I was actually directing that comment at myself not knowing how to prove the fact that the size of the tubes in the Woodstock amp definitely is bigger than EL34's which I never wanted to believe either. Sorry if it sounded otherwise.

[daveweyer]

I think it's only sensible to assume that there were European amps in Jimi's arsenal which may never have seen the West Coast.
Still, I do think he took his American gear with him, at least some of it, especially in '69 and later.
If I remember correctly we made export models out of some American-market gear.
I also remember 4 existing Marshalls coming in to West Coast Organ and Amp during the time we got the mixed up shipment from "Jim Morrison LTD". I'm pretty sure some of these had that big Drake PT with the 3" lamination stack, and those were my best targets for power mods.
Remember, some amps came in destroyed too, and got blended with others to make a good one.

When it came to bright cap removal, or tone stack alterations, we used the trial method, since some amps sounded brighter, thicker, duller, and so on. We always tweaked them, so there is no ONE WAY that every amp got set up.
Also, if that underside pic of the amp actually has an American IRC 1K cathode resistor, then it may well indicate that I had raised the plate voltage in that amp and raised the resistor value to lessen the current in the tube to get its clipping waveform more symmetrical.

Somewhere on the back of those amps you should be able to find paper fragments of the West Coast sticker embedded in the Tolex. I've seen a couple Jimi amps and was able to find fragments of it.

[shakti]

And isn't that a Drake power transformer with the 2 1/2" stack?

No, I'm almost certain that is a Dagnall T2562 with the copper flux band. Drakes didn't have that band. Though I have seen some 69 amps with a Drake 1203-80.

[shakti]

Did you notice a 1K IRC American resistor on the cathode of V1 with a replacement electrolytic?
Did you also notice (2) 470K IRC American resistors for mixing the two channels?

The photo of the alleged "Governor" is very blurry, but IMO I don't see either of those. It looks like the stock electrolytic and carbon comp 820R on V1 cathode (but changed to shared), and carbon comp 470k mixer resistors. That particular era SLs often had CCs for the mixers, it's one of those little telltale parts that we can use for sorting out the exact timeframe of production (I'm sure Tazin will back me up on this). I have no idea if those CCs are US made, but doubt it as I firmly believe they are stock.

Now, my response question to you Dave: why on earth would you put US made resistors there, replacing the stock value with the exact same value?

[shakti]

The mention of European amps got me thinking:

- It looks to me like Hendrix got a new set of amps in late 68 or early 69, in time for the European tour in Jan/Feb 69. You see him with a single stack at the Lulu TV show in Jan 69, and that looks to be shiny new IIRC. Same thing at RAH in Feb 1969 - those look like new stacks. Whatever happened to those? Presumably they were used on the European Jan/Feb tour, but then what? He didn't play in Europe again until summer '70 IIRC. Were those amps taken to the US? Were they modded, or did they stay stock?

Is it possible that the photos we have of purported Hendrix amps were all from his European stash, and that they remained unmodded? No West Coast stickers to be seen... IIRC there are some shots from behind the amps in the opening of the Isle of Wight film. Anyone with some spare time - can you see West Coast stickers on those?

[Xplorer]

yes, i can see a white sticker on the visible amp bask side, but i didn't Watch the full concert yet. at 00:10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpoqD-Z31yI

[VelvetGeorge]

It does look very clearly like there is a white sticker on the rear left of the amp.





george

[frenchie]

yup george , those are west coast stickers , but yellowed ( kind of strange since at this gig the metal panel amps were supposed to be shiny new ) , at first i though of a reflection on the panel , but i rolled it frame by frame , the travelling of the camera changes the angle , but the placement of the sticker stays the same relatively to the panel , which wouldn't be the case with a reflection ....

Dave was there other colors of stickers at west coast ? ( sorry i had to try that particular question , just in case )


ps ; by the way to the one concerned , flaming is calling names , i'm just telling you with force to change your methods of investigation ... why was i irritated you'll ask me ?....Well i'm not a real fanatic of pointless arguments , structured by loosy bickering about wether some obscure paper told this and this , wether your or my feeling is this or this , this is not stable reasoning in any case , and leads to endless mudslinging , polluting a "designed to be clear and informative " thread , all of that without deciding of a common reasonable conclusion ... As said dave in a previous post only the use of logic and deduction can achieve a consensus , i don't see the logic in telling from the nowadays pic of a 45+ years old amp with EL34 that the amp didn't have 6550 at some point in his life .... Speaking of what you cannot prove or do not know is not a really good mental hygiene in life , reassure yourself i try to apply this hygiene also to myself .... There are methods of deduction , ones that work , each time , just use them man , they are free and will force your worst enemies to bow to your opinions , what's not to like ?!

[Tazin]

Ok, we need to clear one thing up....This picture is NOT of any of the supposed Hendrix amps.



As for the carbon composition resistors...The resistors are from a company called Morganite (an acquisition of Allen-Bradley UK which BTW was a subsidiary of Allen-Bradley USA) and not from IRC.

The amps shown in the Isle Of Wight are USA model Marshall's which have added voltage selectors. Are they the same amps used during Woodstock?....Probably.